Property Gazuming Explained
Imagine buying your dream house, thinking that everything is in place for you to buy that dream house, and you start to visualise moving in, and perform all the planning steps... only to hear that, at the last minute, it is not going to be your house anymore because someone else is going to buy it.
Such is the horror of gazumping, or in other words having someone else bid more for the house than you did at the last minute. This is the case in England and Wales, in Scotland it is not so easy to be gazumped as there are laws in place to protect the person buying a property.
However, in England and Wales the estate agent has to pass on all offers that they receive (and even if they did not, someone who saw a property and knew they just had to have it, even if meant gazumping someone else, could just go straight to the buyer by knocking on their door or finding out their phone number!)
If someone really wants to gazump you, then wild horses probably won't stop them. But there are some simple steps that you can use which will reduce the likelihood of this happening.
First of all, you should ask that the property is taken off the market as soon as your offer is accepted: this will reduce the chance of someone falling in love with the property once your offer is in, which is always a bad sign. Also there is nothing more annoying than thinking your offer has been accepted than seeing the same property blazened across the estate agents website for several weeks afterwards - all those potential pairs of eyes that could like what they see in the same way that you did!
Second, you should not be too picky about small matters as this could frustrate the vendor, and also try to accommodate other points: such as their timescale, and work with them to their time plan. Often you won't have any contact with the vendor at all, but we are all human, and if you have had contact with them then being very nice and pleasant can build a rapport and mean that their morals might stop them letting someone else gazump you.
Finally, there is the option of gazumping insurance! Of course this has to occur before you start the solicitor's process, but it does mean if gazumping happens at least you will be able to get the fees back.
More property related articles:
- Tracker Mortgage Details
- Letting a Property
- Business Transfer Agent
- Commercial mortgage fees and repayments
- Non marketed properties and HIPs
